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I made a 25 inch ceramic sculpture that is a twisted cylinder shape. In the drying and firing process it became a bit unstable. I am entering it in a show and I need to stabilize the structure. It has an opening in the top but you can't see the bottom. What would you recommend to put in the vessel to add weight to stabilize it? I have thought about rocks, sand, or pouring plaster in the bottom. Any suggestions?

Hi everyone
I am making a series of ceramic birds in paperclay. Everything goes just fine till I reach the legs... I don't particularly want to make legs out of paperclay - for example, maybe using nichrome wire with clay over it - I think this would begin to look labored and unbirdlike.
So what I want to do instead is to be able to mount the fired clay birds on one, or two, metal rods, and anchor these metal rods into a small plinth of wood or clay. I've searched sculptors' sites and metal suppliers, but I still can't find out what metal to use, how to cut it, and how to attach it securely to the bird.
Another alternative would be metal legs with feet - not realistic ones, as the birds themselves are as much about the clay as they are about the bird. But again, I don't know how to go about this, or how to find someone who might be able to make these for me.
Has anyone else faced this technical issue, and have they managed to resolve it?
Many thanks

WS05 â€“ Kate Borcherding: Developing Narrative Figurative Sculpture
Kate Borcherding
Developing Narrative Figurative Sculpture
WS05 â€“ Saturday & Sunday, 10-4pm, November 15 & 16, 2014
Fee: $200 member/$225 non-member
Public artist lecture Friday, 7-8pm, November 14 â€“ RSVP matt.hyleck@baltimoreclayworks.org
This 2-day, fast-paced workshop explores ideas in developing narrative figurative ceramics and multiple techniques in building and finishing. Through a series of demonstrations, hand-outs (both in class and as take away resources) and hands-on thumbnail exercises, students will become familiar with Kateâ€™s personal approach to constructing narrative scultpure. Students will explore the process of harnessing ideas, advancing the content to form a narrative through a variety of modeling methods and surface approaches to create narrative assemblages. Demonstrations will address a variety of resource material gathering, mark-making methods, construction approaches and surface finishing techniques. Be prepared to engage mind and body for a breakthrough experience in narrative figurative ceramics.
Kate Borcherding (born October 26, 1960) is an American artist working in mixed media. Her artistic style is both neoclassical and postmodern. Her art mainly focuses on the human figure, and is often psychological in nature with narratives expressed across multiple layers. Her ceramic work focuses on the creation of assemblages incorporating either the human form or a personification of an object. She makes use of visual symbols which she extracts and extends from the direct observation of an environment including important cultural, architectural or technological representations. Projecting the object into the observersâ€™ psychological space compels observers to â€œdive inâ€ with their own humanity as an emotive participant in order to unfold the inner narrative of the art. Through this re-living of an inner world of an important period and place a universal moment from the past becomes alive. Borcherdingâ€™s site specific environmental sculpture pushes the space relationship between object and observer even further so that the observer walks into and on the art.
Her long studio career is complemented with a commitment to art education which she fulfills thru printmaking, ceramic and life drawing workshops. She is currently developing a drawing and anatomy curriculum for online education under the moniker â€œArt Teamâ€. She is also an art professor at Sam Houston State University where she has been employed since 1993. During the academic year she lives on a working horse and cattle ranch in Texas. The cool of summer is enjoyed in and around Madison, Wisconsin with her mother, artist Joan Jelinek, and her four brothers.
â€œKnowledge of places is therefore closely linked to knowledge of the self, to grasping onesâ€™s position in the larger scheme of things, including oneâ€™s own community". (Basso, 1996).
WS05 â€“ Saturday & Sunday, 10-4pm, November 15 & 16, 2014
Fee: $200 members; $225 non-members
Contact Matthew Hyleck at matt.hyleck@baltimoreclayworks.org for more information.
Baltimore Clayworks
5707 Smith Avenue
Baltimore, MD 21209
www.baltimoreclayworks.org